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Section 1:
Introduction
Introduction
Consider: How do people with blindness or another visual impairment use the internet? What if you use high levels of zoom to read website pages? What if you have color blindness and often struggle to interpret images created without you in mind?
Digital accessibility means making websites, documents, videos, social media, and other online content usable for everyone, including people with disabilities.
Accessible digital content allows people to read, hear, navigate, and interact with information using a variety of tools and technologies, such as screen readers, captions, keyboards, voice controls, or magnification software.
Need an example? Here is a video where a person with blindness demonstrates how they use the internet.
Why are we talking about this?
Why are we talking about this?
The Americans with Disabilities Act provides protection from discrimination for qualified individuals on the basis of disability, both visible and invisible. It extends civil rights protection for people with disabilities in employment within the public and private sectors, transportation, public accommodations, services provided by state and local government, telecommunications services, and digital media.
As of April 24, 2026, there are now specific standards (WCAG 2.1 AA) that digital materials must meet to be considered compliant with these rules! If you look through these standards, you will notice they are very detailed and can be confusing if you are not already very digitally literate with web concepts.
Complying with these standards means you must either exert additional effort to fix noncompliant materials or reinvent your workflows to avoid potential issues. There is no shortcut or easy way to become compliant.
Basic best practices
Basic best practices
Since meeting these standards is particularly challenging for some types of files and for specific situations, please use these best practices moving forward. See the following sections for instructions on how to do these things!
Avoid PDF files whenever possible! Never send a PDF or post it online unless you have run an accessibility check in Adobe Acrobat (not Adobe Reader, which is the free PDF software that might have been installed automatically on your computer).
This includes PDF newsletters. Our recommendation is to transition them to a different format.
Before sending out a .ppt, .docx., or Google doc run an accessibility check using the platform's built in checker.
Always use alt text on social media.
Ensure captions on webinars/videos are visible and accurate.
Do not post information about participating in VCE events on a non-accessible website. Event information should be on accessible VCE solutions.
Old materials can be kept on a public-facing website provided they are clearly labeled "archive" and are not being actively used or referred to.
Next you will learn:
Next you will learn:
This section contains recommendations and templates. Note that we are not providing support for PDFs. Any additional items or questions not recommended in this section fall into the "resource library" questions--you are responsible for learning the concepts necessary for remediation of PDFs.
How to implement concepts and accessibility theory in your own work.
Do you need to create a table in a document? Want to get into graphic design and have questions about color contrast? This section provides links to existing trainings on these global concepts.
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